Declamation on the Nobility and Pre-eminence of the Female Sex (review)

Reviews Agrippa, Henricus Cornelius, Declamation on the Nobility and PreminenceoftheFemaleSex (TheOtherVoiceinEarlyModernEurope), ed. and trans. Albert Rabil, Jr., Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1996; paper; pp. xxxii, 109; R.R.P. US$13.95. This is the first volume in a series featuring translations of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts which represent what the series editors, Margaret King and Albert Rabil, call 'the other voice'. The idea of the 'other voice' is articulated in a twenty-page general introduction to the series. It refers to what was written by both female and male authors in support of female equality and opportunity and in opposition to the misogyny of the '"first voice" of the educated m e n w h o created western culture'. King and Rabil, Jr. perceive this attack on the misogynist tradition as part of the broader cultural movement of Renaissance humanism and its propensity to re-examine ideas from the classical and medieval past. Humanists certainly shared the misogynist views of their culture; but they sometimes m a d e possible a re-reading of that tradition by their critical position towards the authors, texts and cultural values of the past. 156 Reviews The general introduction also includes a short account of some of the leading writers w h o responded to and challenged this misogynist tradition—the compilers of catalogues in praise of w o m e n such as Boccaccio; w o m e n writers such as Christine de Pisan, Isotta Nogarola and Cassandra Fedele; male authors like Juan Rodriguez del Padron, Martin Le Franc, Bartolommeo Goggio and Galeazzo Capra, w h o took up the querelle des femmes; and related humanist treatises on subjects such as marriage, the family and education by Barbaro, Alberti, Vives and Erasmus. The humanist treatises in praise of w o m e n culminate in the subject of this book, Cornelius Agrippa's On the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex. This short, general overview is very useful, especially for those corning to the topic for thefirsttime;so too is the conceptual division of the problematic under the four headings of chastity, power, speech and knowledge. Only the section on "The Witch Books' (p. xxif.) seems somewhat out of place. While witch treatises certainly represented one genre through which the misogynist tradition was reproduced, challenges to the increasingly accepted views of diabolic witchcraft such as that by Johann Weyer, could hardly be considered to have revised conventional views of women, as is claimed (p. xxii). A n d the credibility of this section is not helped by the misspelling of the name of one writer listed (Molitur, instead of Molitor), and the attribution of an incorrect first name to another (Stefano Guazzo, instead of Francesco-Maria Guazzo). A n introduction by Rabil to Agrippa's life, his literary work and especially his declamation on w o m e n then follow, together with a short bibliography (pp. 3-37). This provides an assured account of Agrippa's place in the intellectual culture of northern Europe in thefirsthalf of the sixteenth century. It also demonstrates the immediate success of the work after it was published in 1529 Reviews 157 (having been written by Agrippa at the age of 23 twenty years earlier), by its almost immediate translation into French, and then withinfifteenyears, into German, English and Italian. Other translations followed and Agrippa's work exercised an astordshing influence throughout Europe during the next century and more. This appears even more surprising given the almost total neglect of the work in modern studies previous to the last decade. (A German edition by Schoenberger was published subsequent to this book in 1997.) Rabil argues in his introduction (and then demonstrates throughout the notes of his translation) that while Agrippa was certainly original in m a n y respects, he also drew heavily on the works of his predecessors. H e seems especially to have depended on works of Rodriguez del Padron and Bartolommeo Goggio, and possibly also on that of Maria Equicola. Agrippa constantly tries to reverse earlier traditions by arguing for the superiority of women over men. H e does this by employing a strategy of contrasts. Eve...